Such chassis are located in many appliances, particularly in entertainment electronics or in measuring technology. A number of electrical and/or mechanical components are affixed to such chassis, such as motors, gears, partial chassis, switches and others, which are either plate- or tub-shaped, or are formed in steps. These components function together and are interconnected by electrical conductors, levers, rods and other drive elements, to perform the chosen appliance functions.
Many kinds of appliances are known, particularly in the area of entertainment electronics, which require a number of attachment elements for electrical and mechanical transmission elements and components. A good example is a video recorder chassis, which has a particularly high number of attachment elements, with attaching devices for carrying and affixing the predominantly mechanical components of the threading and tape drive installations, cassette insertion and ejection installations, and similar installations. However, such complicated and difficult to assemble chassis must be cost-effectively manufactured for entertainment electronics. For that reason, particularly low-cost manufacturing methods are sought, for example, in which immovable attachment elements are affixed to the chassis in one operation, if possible. If, for example, suitable injection molding materials are available for such a chassis, the chassis, including the affixed attachment elements, can be manufactured by injection molding as a single component. However, for reasons of mechanical and temperature-dependent dimensional stability, it is often necessary to manufacture a two- or more component chassis, whose body or essential parts are made of metal, to which the attachment elements, made of a suitable plastic material, are permanently affixed. For example, with the known `outsert` technique, the metal plate of the chassis is used as one of the injection channel's peripheries. The attachment elements manufactured in one operation in this manner, are partially connected to each other by injection links above the metal plate of the chassis, and are permanently affixed to the metal plate by molding material injected through openings in the metal plate. The attachment elements are generally formed so that the components to be affixed to the chassis can be inserted or locked to the attachment elements by means of assembly devices, and the components can be locked or snapped into position in the attachment elements.
For simplified manufacturing purposes, no component units or groups are placed on the chassis. Rather, the individual parts of a component unit or group are directly held or supported on the chassis, so that the full assembly of the chassis can be cost-effectively performed in one operation. However, such a chassis has the disadvantage that, if one of the attachment elements is damaged by improper handling of the appliance, or during servicing, the damaged attachment element cannot be replaced, and, in the worst of cases, the entire chassis must be replaced. However, this represents a large expense for the repair of an appliance that is equipped with such a chassis, which often leads to annoyance at the service station and is thereby detrimental to the manufacturer.